All it took was a new copper-clad addition, the installation of a geo-thermal heating and cooling system, and some LED lighting to transform an elegant yet out-of-date 19th century building in Munich. When architect Ulrich Hamann of the London-based architectural firm Foster + Partners undertook a four-year $79 million dollar renovation of the Lenbachhaus Gallery and Museum in Munich, Germany, the results were both beautiful and smart.

The dark, primeval mountains and jagged ravines of New Zealand are free of rampaging Orcs, but Middle-earth, 2007, has another nuisance on the loose. It is the load-bearing truck, carrying a quaint, preloved homestead—or rather, two trucks with two halves of a quaint, preloved homestead—causing traffic chaos en route to the wine region of Wairarapa.

When it comes to material originality, this former tavern in Chicago’s trendy Bucktown neighborhood pulls out all the stops. Case in point? Colorful pieces of broken LPs are visible in the glass aggregate flooring of the upstairs master bathroom—-which the architects made from the pulverized remains of old vinyl records.